Tabula Rasa is triple-A and here to stay, says NC West President

Massively recently had the chance to speak with NC West's newly appointed President of Publishing, David Reid. The bulk of the interview concerned the formation of NC West and its implications for NCsoft as a whole, but David also took the time to answer our questions about several of NCsoft's existing triple-A titles, including Tabula Rasa.

Massively: Obviously, Tabula Rasa is one of the triple-A titles NCsoft has in its stable. We hope you'll disagree, but we've heard again and again these rumors from players who are talking to people and from people within the industry, that people within the company are looking at Tabula Rasa to perform better than it has in the past, and that if it doesn't, then there might be consequences to that business reality. Can you clarify that for us, or expand upon that?

David Reid: Let's start with the obvious thing, right? I think the company's been candid about the fact that Tabula Rasa didn't launch at the level we hoped it would, and to that end, we have not given up on the game, we have not given up on the team, and the team hasn't given up! They have worked incredibly hard to improve that product over the months since launch. In fact, I think we just shipped our twelfth update to the game recently.

I think people who gave it a shot during Beta would find a very different, very solid and vastly improved game if they gave it another shot. And of course, we've opened up our free trial to make that happen, in conjunction with the Operation Immortality program that we launched.

So on that side of things, on the promotional and marketing side, we're very happy with how this has turned out for us. And of course last week we were on the Stephen Colbert show, the Colbert report, with Mr. Colbert donating his DNA to help save the human race after some unknown disastrous future if that should come our way. We did announce Stephen Hawking this morning – again, one of mankind's greatest minds has now put his DNA on the immortality drive.

And this just speaks to the appeal that a fully realized Tabula Rasa game is able to bring, and just that there is a really exciting intellectual property there, and story, and part of that genre that we know the MMO gamers are excited about.

So we've done everything that we feel like we need to do as a company, as a publisher, to shake that game up. And going from there, I think it's fair to say that every product all the time is being looked at for how it's performing and things like that, and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it.

And not much more to add, other than the fact that like you said, Tabula Rasa is a triple-A MMO. It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about.

Massively: So from your perspective, then, Tabula Rasa is definitely moving in the direction you guys want it to, and you are hopeful that it will take its place alongside games like City of Heroes and ArenaNet's Guild Wars, in this group of games that you will be focusing on in the future?

DR: You bet. You got it.

Read what David had to say on Guild Wars and on the recent changes within NCsoft.